Travel: The greatest event of the summer is turning into a slanging match

YES, THEY are ridiculous spectacles, but as summer sets in, the garish Solar Eclipse Viewer is likely to become the hottest fashion accessory in town - so long as the town in question is Penzance, or Truro, or anywhere else within the band of totality for the last eclipse of the millennium.

Forget New Year's Eve; around elevenses on 11 August, the most sublime experience of the century will be visited upon Cornwall and southern Devon - weather permitting. On pages 20 and 21 we give a definitive spread on what should be the greatest travel event of the summer.

The benefit of wearing these spectacles in advance of the event is to obscure the degeneration of what should be joyful anticipation into a slanging match between rival elements of the travel industry.

Did you know, for example, that "the Cornish authorities have all but declared a state of emergency with up to five million people expected to cross into the totality zone"? Actually, they haven't, but that's what a company called Carmargue is telling people in order to sell its holidays on board luxury yachts in the Channel.

"Devon and Cornwall will be turning people away" - not the claim of another profit-hungry company, but the assertion of a rival destination, Bath and Bristol. With accusations of profiteering and scare-mongering flying around Cornwall itself, I'm rather glad I'll be wearing these on the beach in Dieppe. See you in France, if it's not too dark.